The Ego Trip: How Psychedelic Colonialism Turned a Sacred Toad Into a Commodity
Kimon de Greef's The Ego Trip exposes the dark underbelly of the psychedelic wellness industry through the story of Octavio Rettig, a self-styled shaman who appropriated Indigenous traditions, exploited vulnerable people, and turned a sacred amphibian into a commodity. The book is a damning indictment of how hyper-capitalism hides behind a mask of spiritual authenticity, extracting profit from both nature and the marginalized communities it claims to honor.
Who is Octavio Rettig and why does his story matter?
Octavio Rettig embodies every problematic trend of our era: influencer culture, unregulated wellness practices, toxic masculinity, psychedelic boosterism, and cultural appropriation. His rise and fall, meticulously documented by investigative journalist Kimon de Greef, reveals systemic patterns of exploitation that remain largely unchallenged in the booming psychedelic industry.
Rettig's journey began with the Sonoran desert toad, the world's only known psychoactive animal. Its venom contains 5-MeO-DMT, a potent hallucinogen nicknamed the God molecule. While the toad has existed blamelessly for millions of years, humans discovered its powers in the early 1980s, and the creature has since been transformed into a resource to be extracted, packaged, and sold.
How did Rettig appropriate Seri Indigenous traditions?
The Seri people, who live between the Sonoran Desert and the Gulf of California, have suffered enormously under Spanish colonization and the Mexican republic. By 2011, only a few hundred remained, living in squalid conditions, preyed upon by drug cartels and plagued by addiction. Rettig visited them, adopted their chants, and falsely claimed their ancient toad-based tradition had been suppressed and was now being rediscovered.
This is a textbook case of what scholars call epistemic violence: the erasure of Indigenous knowledge systems while simultaneously profiting from their appropriation. Rettig presented himself globally as a practitioner of indigenous medicine, centering himself as the authority while the actual Seri people remained marginalized and unheard.
My work has been misunderstood, misinterpreted, and misused. - Octavio Rettig
What harms did Rettig inflict on his clients?
The harm Rettig caused is well documented. He offered huge doses with minimal screening, sometimes inflicting treatment forcibly. Footage shows him being aggressive with clients, which he acknowledged with the chilling justification that his actions might be disturbing but constituted deep therapeutic work. He engaged in sexual relationships with women after serving them toad, denied responsibility when patients died, and never seemed to learn from his mistakes.
This pattern is all too familiar to those who study abuse in spiritual and therapeutic settings. The power imbalance between practitioner and vulnerable seeker, combined with altered states of consciousness, creates conditions ripe for exploitation. The wellness industry, largely unregulated, provides cover for predators who hide behind spiritual language.
Why is the psychedelic industry a site of systemic exploitation?
De Greef's reporting, which began at the New Yorker, connects Rettig's individual failings to broader structural problems. Pharmaceutical companies are now harnessing 5-MeO-DMT for their own ends, patenting compounds derived from a creature that Indigenous peoples have known about for generations. This is biopiracy: the extraction of resources and knowledge from the Global South for profit by corporations in the Global North.
The book serves as a parable for so much that is wrong with the current economy. The undeserved authority of charlatans, the rampant exploitation of the natural world, and the hiding of hyper-capitalism behind a shield of cod-mystical woo-woo are all on display. The toads have become just another commodity, and the Seri people, who should be the stewards of this knowledge, remain excluded from its profits.
What lessons does The Ego Trip offer for social justice movements?
This book is essential reading for anyone concerned with decolonial justice, Indigenous rights, and the ethics of psychedelic therapy. It demonstrates how easily liberation movements can be co-opted by capitalist extraction. The psychedelic renaissance, which promised healing and consciousness expansion, has largely been captured by the same forces it claimed to transcend.
De Greef avoids the gonzo temptation to smoke toad himself, instead offering methodical, clear-eyed reporting. His South African perspective, coming from researching wildlife smuggling, gives him an unusually sharp view of how grim these practices are. He is not a man for grand conclusions, but the evidence speaks for itself.
Rettig's ultimate fate is to be largely forgotten by the movement he helped popularize, which has mutated and expanded at the speed of social media. New influencers appear daily, new markets open, and the cycle of appropriation and extraction continues. The question is whether we will learn from this cautionary tale before more harm is done.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is 5-MeO-DMT a legitimate therapeutic treatment?
There may well be a medical case for treatment with 5-MeO-DMT under proper clinical conditions. However, the way Rettig administered it, with huge doses, minimal screening, and forced treatments, has no therapeutic justification. The difference between regulated clinical use and unregulated shamanic tourism is a matter of life and death.
What can be done to prevent cultural appropriation in psychedelic practices?
Meaningful change requires centering Indigenous voices and leadership in psychedelic research and practice. This means economic redistribution, intellectual property protections for traditional knowledge, and genuine partnership rather than extraction. The Seri people should be the ones deciding how their traditions are represented and who benefits from them.
Why is the wellness industry so susceptible to abuse?
The wellness industry operates largely outside regulatory frameworks, creating spaces where power imbalances go unchecked. Vulnerable people seeking healing are often desperate, and charismatic practitioners can exploit that desperation. The language of spirituality and transformation can mask abuse, making it difficult for victims to speak out.